Several months ago, Obama promised that he would support the filibuster of any legislation that granted immunity to telcos that illegally wiretapped American's communications at the behest of Alberto Gonzalez and Dick Cheney.

Just last week, Obama flip-flopped and sold the Constitution for 30 shekels. With the primary over, he's apparently made the calculation that he can afford to betray the people that supported him at least partially based on the premise that he'd stand up to the old politics of fear and false choices. He decided that he was going to support the current package of legislation that not only offers telco immunity, but grants unprecedented authority to the executive by removing critical checks and balances.

Meanwhile, Obama has not amended or retracted other campaign promises. For example, he promises a more open and connected government:

Our nation's progress has been stifled by a system corrupted by millions of lobbying dollars contributed to political campaigns, the revolving door between government and industry, and privileged access to inside information-all of which have led to policies that favor the few against the public interest. An Obama presidency will use cutting-edge technologies to reverse this dynamic, creating a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens. Technology-enabled citizen participation has already produced ideas driving Obama's campaign and its vision for how technology can help connect government to its citizens and engage citizens in a democracy. Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making.

He will accomplish the goal by, inter alia,

• Giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation.
• Bringing democracy and policy deliberations directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national online town hall meetings to answer questions and discuss issues before their agencies.
• Employing technologies, including blogs, wikis and social networking tools, to modernize internal, cross-agency, and public communication and information sharing to improve government decision-making.

This sounds appealing, and it is being tested right now.

Remember that email I told you about? I followed the link and joined the group. At the time, it had 8 members. E – I – G – H – T. Eight.

As I write this, less than 60 hours later, the group has just under 2000 members and is growing steadily.

Barack Obama now has another choice: he can hew to his campaign pledge of opening up government and pioneering ways of being more responsive to the represented, or he can continue to support the unitary executive and law-breaking telcos. Or he can speak with his supporters and tell us why we are wrong.

Of course, the more people we have on our side, the greater the pressure Obama will feel. So you're your own voice and come sign up for the group.

Download audio file (OCHILDMOLESTER.mp3)

transcript coming…

UPDATE: transcript from Eli at FDL

We have a lot of crazy people running around America, and the internet encourages the craziness and the hatred. Hatred in this country is ratcheted up now, a hundred times… more than it was ten years ago, because of the internet, which provides haters with sanctuary, and encourages them. Because other haters can say "Oh yeah, you're just like me, you're not alone."

So it used to be that there were isolated nuts like the killer of John Lennon, the killer of Martin Luther King… Now these people, just like child molesters, can get comfort from the internet, so all people in the public eye are in danger.

Guess what? I'm a member. I went.

When he was done speaking, I was able to chat him up a little bit. And, what do you know? It looks like this lil' ol' blogger scooped 60 Minutes Leslie Stahl.

Listen to the exchange:

Download audio file (scalia-stark.mp3)